Theory & the Media Professional

Stephen Hill
 Objectives
To explore how three classic theories of audience might help answer the
question:

Does the proliferation of web 2.0 user generated content and affordable
creative technologies pose a threat to the integrity of the media
professional?

AIM: To explore the ways that academic media theory can help the
media professional understand the interactive potential of the audience in a
digital age.

LINK TO THEORY (MARXISM): Does the deregulation of the ‘means of production'

(Karl Marx, 1848) pose a threat to the integrity of the media professional?
 Overview
Forms and Conventions Audience Institution Representation

Does the proliferation of web 2.0 and affordable creative

technologies pose a threat to the integrity of the media
professional?
How academic media theory can help the professional
understand the interactive potential of the audience in a
digital age.

Three Theories of Audience

1. Roland Barthes – Death of the Author
(1967)
2. Dick Hebdige – Subculture (1979)
3. Chris Anderson – The Long Tail (2006)
Forms and Conventions Audience Institution Representation

The Media Theory Timeline

1900 1950 2000

. . .
Roland Barthes Dick Hebdige Chris Anderson
Death of the Author Subculture: The The Long Tail
Meaning of Style
(1967) (2006)
(1979)
Forms and Conventions Audience Institution Representation

Roland Barthes, Death of the Author (1967)

The Big Idea: The meaning of a text is inscribed
by the audience who essentially re-write it. The
reader becomes an ‘author’ rendering the real
author ‘dead’.

Influenced by: Ferdinand de Saussure – Cours

de Linguistic (1912)

Influence on: Stuart Hall – Encoding/ Decoding

(1973)

Contemporary Relevance: Web 2.0 user

generated content is blurring distinction
between producers and consumers.
Forms and Conventions Audience Institution Representation

Dick Hebdige, Subculture: The Meaning of Style (1979)

The Big Idea: Subcultural audiences construct their

identity by using material objects as symbols of
group belonging e.g Punks and safety pins. These
objects become ideologically loaded and stable
signs in their own right.

Influenced by: Jean Baudrillard – The Consumer

Society (1970).

Influence on: Stuart Ewan – All Consuming Images

(1987).

Contemporary Relevance: With the proliferation of

digital technology and multi-platform branding,
niche markets and defined communities of
consumers are the key to profitability across media
platforms e.g EMAP’s Kerrang!
Forms and Conventions Audience Institution Representation

Chris Anderson, The Long Tail, 2006

The Big Idea: The fragmentation of media audiences

into niche markets has transformed patterns of
media consumption. Combined with the marketing
and distribution possibilities created by the Internet,
possibilities have now opened up for the profitability
of fringe creative industries.

Influenced by: Vance Packard - The Hidden

Persuaders (1957)

Influence on: Too early to say.

Contemporary Relevance: The future of Media

industries is selling more of less. For example, BBC
received 4.7% of funding though it only has 1.8% of
BBC1’s audience – its niche market programming
can be sold on more easily. Excess capacity in
schedule = mother of invention?
Forms and Conventions Audience
Music Video
Traditional view: Music videos are the ultimate
example of the post-modern text.
Digital age: audience embracing cheap digital
video editing software and YouTube
Impact on professional: destabilised the
relationship between producers and
consumers.
Prospects for future: reinstated some of the
key conventions of the genre.
Institution Representation
Foundation Degree - Popular Music
Barthes: The interpretation of the musical
soundtrack by the video director
exemplifies the authorial tension in
Death of an Author.
Hebdige: Sub-cultural codes that denote
particular niche market have become
central to the visual style of music videos
aimed at defined communities of
consumers.
Anderson: Multi-platform branding has
seen the emergence of some very
specialised markets for music video:
Smash Hits TV, Q TV, Kerrang! TV etc
Forms and Conventions Audience Institution Representation
BA Hons Journalism and Communication

Multi-Media Journalism

Traditional view: press as the Fourth Estate Barthes: questions the truth of
(Peter Wright/David Kelly) objective reporting. Meaning of
news inscribed by the audience.

Digital age: Traditional journalism competing with

blogs, message boards, Amazon reviews, forums etc. Hebdige: Lifestyle journalism
cohered around sub-cultural
niche markets: Angling Times to
Impact on professional: boundaries blurred between Living in France
current affairs and entertainment.
Anderson: Traditional journalism
increasingly fragmented –
Prospects for future: multi-platform branding of old- specialist television news
guard. High quality journalistic = niche market channels etc.
 Forms and Conventions Audience Institution Representation

Television Production BA Hons Media Production

Traditional view: Concept of broadcasting. Tension Barthes: Interactivity means

between paternalistic sensibility of BBC and populist audiences are now the

 
awareness of independent channels authors of their own viewing
schedule.
Digital age: Narrow casting. Multi-channelling. Greater
                                        
has
audience interactivity (pressing the red button)      + has
been replaced by narrowcasting. The schedule
been replaced by TV on demand.
convergence Hebdige: Narrowcasting to
sub-cultural groups has
replaced broadcasting.
Impact on professional: More television being made more
cheaply, less freedom about its content. Reality television
placing greater emphasis on audience participation. Anderson: Lower production
costs and increased channel
numbers means minority
Prospects for future: YouTube, reality television reinforce television production is now
old conventions. More sophisticated audience more profitable.
receptive to hybridity.
Forms and Conventions Audience Institution Representation

Computer Animation
BA Hons Computer Animation

Traditional view: animation discrete genre of film-making - Barthes: Animation

19th Century (flip books and zoetropes). supposes authorial
creativity on the part of the
audience in the form of the
Digital age: Proliferation of anime. Domestic packages like willing suspension of
GIF Movie Gear allowing audiences to produce their own disbelief.
animation for broadcast on YouTube
Hebdige: Animation is a
discrete sub-culture of the
Impact on professional: Convergence of animation with film industry with its own
special effects in mainstream film is opening up new sub-genres.
cinematic possibilities. Anderson: Proliferation of
New Media technologies
has opened new niche
Prospects for future: Amateur productions e.g Anime pop markets for software and
music videos widening audiences for animation films. animation based film.
Forms and Conventions Audience Institution Representation

Conclusion
To explore how three classic media theories of audience might help answer the question:
Does the proliferation of web 2.0 and affordable creative technologies pose a threat to the
integrity of the media professional?

Roland Barthes, Death of the Author, 1967.

The shift is irrelevant. The audience has always been in procession of the
means of production in the way in which they inscribe meaning into the
reception of a text; creative media technologies are an extension of this.

Dick Hebdige, Subculture and the Meaning of Style, 1979.

The output of the media professional is always open to appropriation by
subcultural groups who will re-work its meaning. Moreover subversive
readings are always dependent on the hegemony of the media
professional and thereby reinforce it.

Chris Anderson, The Long Tail, 2006

Much of the creativity is fairly illusory. Though products may be niche
marketed most domestic technologies reinforce the conventions of the
dominant means of production. ‘Long tail’ opens up new opportunities.